A proper understanding of the Wallace Nutting signature process can not only help you to authenticate a Wallace Nutting picture, but it can help you to date it as well. Authenticating a legitimate “Wallace Nutting” signature is probably the most difficult part of Wallace Nutting collecting because Wallace Nutting rarely signed pictures himself.

It can be safely assumed that Nutting signed some of his earliest pictures, before he hired employees and as his business was growing. We also know that he signed some later pictures as gifts to friends or favors to associates. And throughout the years he undoubtedly signed some pictures in the Studio. But for all practical purposes, Nutting probably signed perhaps no more than several thousand pictures out of his overall output of literally millions of pictures.

Rather, it was his colorists, or more specifically, his Head Colorists, who signed the Wallace Nutting name. As a result, when you buy a Wallace Nutting picture, you are buying a picture with the Wallace Nutting name on it, not a picture signed by Wallace Nutting himself.

In the Wallace Nutting Studio, after each picture was colored and mounted on the mat board, it was returned to the Head Colorist who actually signed the Wallace Nutting name. And considering that Wallace Nutting was in full-time business between 1905-1941, and he had a part-time business between 1900-1904, he obviously had many different people signing his name over the 40+ year period. This accounts for the many different Wallace Nutting signatures that will be found on his pictures today.

And with so many different “authentic” signatures, this is the easiest thing for a forger to fake. As a result, differentiating between authentic and fake Wallace Nutting signatures is the hardest thing for a new collector to master.

I will be the first to admit that even I cannot authenticate each and every signature I see. In nearly every instance, I can determine which signatures are authentic, and which are fakes. But every once in a while a picture comes along that I just don’t know whether its real or not. There are a few signatures that look like they might be 70-90 years old, yet aren’t recognizable as a signature I have previously seen. When shown to a group of very experienced collectors, more often than not there is a lack of unanimous agreement regarding its authenticity. Which means that no one knows for sure.

The good news is that most fake Wallace Nutting signatures are relatively easy to detect…once you know what to look for.

This is the only in-depth attempt at visually exploring legitimate Wallace Nutting signatures that we are aware of. We ask that you take this article for what it is intended to be: an in-depth look at Wallace Nutting Signatures. But it does not include all legitimate signatures. That would be a physical impossibility.

Basically, we have divided Wallace Nutting signatures into 3 distinct time periods:

• Early Southbury…1904-1910

• Late Southbury-Early Framingham…1911-1930

• Late Framingham…1930-1941

Each period has certain characteristics which we will try to explore. But before we explore many of the different colorist’s signatures, let take a brief look at Wallace Nutting’s own signature.

Wallace Nutting’s Personal Signature: Prior to the days of desktop publishing, e-mail, cell phones, Federal Express, UPS, Priority Mail, Land line Long Distance Service, and all the other modern means of communication, Wallace Nutting had little alternative but to correspond via the US Mail. And since Wallace Nutting was relatively famous, especially in his later life, he corresponded with many individuals, many of whom kept copies of his letters.

Wallace Nutting also actively promoted most of the books that he wrote, especially by attending book signings where he would often sign his books upon request.

And we know that he signed various pictures over the years.

So between his letters, books, and pictures, there is a pretty good sampling of his handwriting and signatures available for comparison. And it is pretty obvious once you have reviewed his signature and correspondence that Nutting’s handwriting was not what you would call neat. So when you consider Nutting’s relatively poor handwriting, and the large volume of signatures that were needed as his business grew, it becomes obvious that he needed someone to sign his name to his pictures.

You should understand that Nutting’s handwriting obviously changed over a 40-year period. When he started the Southbury business, he was 44. He died in Framingham in 1941 at the age of 80. Everyone will have different handwriting between the ages of 44-80, especially when working in a rushed business atmosphere, and Wallace Nutting was no exception.

Early Southbury Signatures…1904-1910: It can be safely assumed that Nutting signed most of his earlier pictures, especially during his beginning years. Volume was small, he was still testing the commercial possibilities for his pictures, and he had no employees until around 1905.

Once he opened the Nuttinghame Studio in Southbury, and as volume grew, he began to hire various employees to help in the day-to-day activities associated with the business. At this point, Nutting turned over the picture signing responsibility to several of his trusted employees.

At first, these employees were trained to copy Wallace Nutting’s personal signature, especially with the distinctive formation of the final “g” in “Nutting“, which had a tail curving to the right instead of the left. Many people today mistakenly think that any early signature with that right-curving tail is Wallace Nutting’s own signature. Unfortunately, that is an incorrect assumption to make. Since the colorists signed so many pictures, and Nutting signed so few pictures, the probability is that Nutting did not sign it. Plus, who can confirm with 100% certainty that Nutting always finished the “g” with the tail curing right rather than left?

The earliest signatures were typically signed in Pencil. I typically use the date of 1910 as the transition year from Pencil-to-Pen signatures. This doesn’t mean that a pen was never used before 1910. Nor does it mean that a pencil was never used after 1910. However, I think that we can safely say that most Pencil Signatures would date a picture at 1910 or earlier.

How else can an Early Southbury Signature be identified and dated?

• If the signature is in pencil, it is probably early Southbury

• If the picture has a white, reversed-out block copyright on the image, the signature is probably early Southbury. Some of the earliest pictures contained a longer copyright marking, e.g. “Copyright 1904, by Wallace Nutting” vs. a much more concise @WN’16. This longer copyright was phased out by 1905.

• Often times the subject matter will identify the picture as early Southbury. For example, certain titles that appeared in the 1904 or 1908 Picture Catalog, but which were not sold in later years, can be assumed to be early Southbury.

Late Southbury-Early Framingham Signatures…1910-1930: 1910-30 marked the peak period for Wallace Nutting pictures. His business was employing 200 people at this time, probably 100 of whom were colorists. His picture sales were at an all-time high, more signature signers were needed to keep up with production, and you will find a wider variety of authentic signatures during this period than any other.

The signatures from this period were typically signed in Pen. The most distinctive signature from this period having a bold and flowing appearance.

How else can a late Southbury-early Framingham signature be identified?

• If the signature is in Pen, and there is no black border around the picture, it is probably late Southbury-early Framingham.

• The signature was often bold and flowing in appearance. This is not to say that bold and flowing signatures were never used in the other periods, but rather the bold and flowing signatures were more typical of the 2nd period than the 1st or 3rd periods.

• The subject matter and location of a picture can help to date the picture. For example, Interior scenes from Nutting’s Colonial Chain of Houses will rarely have a Pencil signature because they weren’t photographed until after 1915, when Nutting purchased the first home within the chain.

• Pictures from Pennsylvania, New York, or Virginia were rarely signed in Pencil, because most of these were taken after he left Southbury and stopped using the Pencil signature.

• The more concise copyright @ WN’16 are also indicative of this period.

• The color tone can also be indicative of the period. Pictures with more subdued color are typically from the Southbury-early Framingham period. Later Framingham pictures usually were more brightly colored than the earlier years.

Late Framingham Signatures…1930-41: By this time, Nutting was taking relatively few new pictures for commercial distribution. As interest in his pictures was fading, and with literally thousands of negatives already on hand, he relied primarily on selling images that he already had in inventory.

Generally, 1930’s signatures will be found on pictures having these characteristics:

• A black border, with a very colorful picture, will often times be found

• Signatures on black border pictures were typically smaller and more concise than the early bold and flowing signature. Presumably the bold and flowing signature might have competed with the black border.

• If the picture had an indented matting, without the black border, but having a much more brightly colored picture, it is probably from this period

• If the picture has a Copyright Label on the back, it is probably from this period.

Subject matter can also help to identify the type of signature used. For example, Floral arrangements and Garden scenes were only introduced on a larger scale in the 1930’s. Certain of these pictures were matted and signed, other were close-framed and signed directly on the picture itself. Sometimes the picture was signed in Pencil, other times it was signed in Pen.

Rarity of Pencil vs. Pen Signatures: Many collectors fail to understand the difference in rarity between the Pencil and Pen signatures. Although there are a few exceptions, the general rule of thumb is that Pencil signatures were used until 1910, and after 1910 Pen signatures were almost exclusively used.

This means that Pencil signatures must be rarer than Pen signatures because:

• Pencil Signatures were used for only 10 years (1900-1910), when production was at its lowest

• Pen signatures were used for more than 30 years (1910-1941), when production was at its highest

Those 30+ peak-production years of Pen signatures would indicate that perhaps 90% of all Wallace Nutting signatures were signed in Pen, while perhaps only 10% were signed in Pencil.

So with all other factors being the same, i.e., Subject Matter, Condition, and Size…a picture with a Pencil signature is rarer, and should probably be valued higher, than a comparable Pen signature. However, if any of these three factors are not the same, the type of signature used should become the least important factor in determining value.

Wallace Nutting Collecting Tips

• The Signature on a Wallace Nutting picture can help you to both authenticate and date the picture.

• Most Signatures were signed by the Head Colorist rather than Wallace Nutting himself.

• A Pencil signature usually represents pictures taken during the early Southbury period (1900-1910)

• A Pen signature, without a black picture border, more often than not will be from the late Southbury-early Framingham period (1910-1930).

• A Pen signature with a black picture border, will date the picture during the late Framingham period (1930-1941)

• Pencil signatures are significantly rarer than Pen signatures.

• A variety of factors including the picture coloration, matting type, frame style, signature, type of copyright, subject matter, and location of picture can all be used to date a Wallace Nutting picture.

We’ve heard them all: “The customer is #1 concern.” “We care about the customer.” “The customer comes first.” they have all become clichés; they have become all but meaningless words. “Thank you” more often than not means, “sign on the dotted line and move along so I can go do my next task.” “Care” is handed out about as casually as are sugar packets, with as much concern and attention. The words have lost their meaning.

In 1974, with my new B.A. degree in hand, the only job that I could land was driving a trash truck for a private contractor under municipal contract. This was during an economic time very similar to one we are currently experiencing. Richard Nixon was President, gasoline prices had recently tripled, and jobs were few and far between. My “class 2” trucker’s license was more valuable than my B.A., and not very valuable at that. I picked trash by day, waited tables at night. I usually had time for quick nap in-between jobs.

Ines de Costa was the restaurant boss. Her husband Manny held the title, but Ines was the boss. She talked a tough game at first: only smoke in the wait-staff area, no smoking in the dining room, only one drink per shift, we could order a sandwich for ourselves when our last table had been served.

In reality we ordered whatever we felt like eating whenever we wanted to eat, had 2-4 drinks a night, and smoked wherever we felt like smoking. Once in a while Ines would make noise, but she loved her crew, especially the men, and we could do no wrong. She cared for her staff, she cared for her customers, and was passionate about them all being well-fed.

There will always be a few independent restaurants, delis, food places that break all the rules, do many things wrong, yet they manage to succeed over long periods of time. These are inevitably special places, always run by special people. There is always a certain passion present in these places: their followers are cult-like.

Ines’s mission, her passion was to feed people until they were stuffed, then get them to eat some more. Not all her dishes were great, some were just okay. But two of her dishes were without peer, won her fame. Her baccala, Portuguese style dried cod smothered with onions and whatever else she magically put into that concoction. Her caldo verde, they called it “soupish caldene” and we called it Portuguese soup, it was Emil Lagasse’s choice for the best thing he ever ate on the show of the same name.

Yes, Emeril had her on his show a few times, filmed his last show partly from her place. Ines was his first kitchen boss and his “second mother.” So, maybe he is biased on the soup. I don’t think so.

Ines could have written the book on how not to run a restaurant. Portion control was a joke. There was no discipline, yet work got done, everybody pitched in, one person slacked, somebody else picked it up, it worked. Every vendor wanted to sell to Ines, she paid her bills – early. She’d beat the salesperson for 10 cents a case, then feed them a meal and give them a doggy bag large enough to feed their family when they got home. If a priest or a cop came into the restaurant, the portions grew even larger. Ditto politicians and morticians. She liked being connected to the higher powers.

Well into her seventies Ines worked six days a week, donated her time to a soup kitchen on the seventh. Her body was bent and frail from the long hours on her feet in the kitchen: her mind was strong, her will was strong, her passion to feed more people never wavered. She didn’t say she cared, she didn’t throw around meaningless thank-you’s: her actions outperformed her words.

I attended her funeral mass last Friday. The church was packed like a busy Saturday nite. Eight chubby priests co-celebrated the mass. Her daughter, also Ines, beautifully eulogized her. At the end of the ceremony the congregation gave Ines her a last standing ovation, a loud boisterous one, a seemingly unending one, then went for one last time to eat soupish caldene – though not as good as hers. When it’s all over, and it will be for all of us, what more could we ask for?

You know all about this stuff, you’re in the industry. Now get back into the kitchen and cook some more frigg’n calde verde.

At the time of contact with the baseball, the hitter wants his chest on the contact point:

1. ball away, chest away at contact,

2. ball inside, chest on contact point inside

Once you tell players to rotate when hitting, they are going to do that and they are going to figure out a way to rotate and they tend to start rushing their upper body.

With bug squishers for example, you will always see foot down early and a vertical, straight up position with chest facing pitcher. You do not see that vertical straight up position with chest on the pitcher in good hitters.

Instead, in good hitters you will see a lateral tilt in the shoulders. If the hitter does not go in a straight line shift from the back to the front at the start of the swing, and the hitter tries to tilt, the hitter will fall backwards. You cannot get good tilt in your swing without the quality shift in your swing.

If the hitter just sits back on their back foot, and then attempts to tilt like a great hitter, he/she will collapse in the back shoulder and the bat will drop as well have other problems. Instead, with a quality shift, the hitter can tilt properly and have dynamic balance in the tilted position. The hitter can maintain a good stacked position of the bat over his hands and maintain excellent balance in the swing when a quality shift occurs.

A quality tilt does a few really good things for the hitter:

1. It allows the hitter to bring his center of gravity back behind his front side so that he doesn’t get out front over his front side or lunge

One thing you see with Manny Ramirez, Barry Bonds and Cabrera is they help themselves out with the tilt by cheating little bit with the tilt at the beginning of the swing. This is what they do – instead of flattening their bat to get on plane with the pitched baseball, they begin to tilt which brings them more on plane with the ball. Simply tilting at the hip joint, allows the hitter to be more on plane with the pitch. This is a genius move by some great hitters.

2. It allows the hitter to stay on plane with the pitched ball

If a hitter keeps his body vertical, he has got to get on plane with the ball at some point. You will see hands drop and bat drop with kids who stay vertical when hitting a baseball. They have to flatten their bat out to get on plane with the pitched ball.

There is no evidence of level shoulders anywhere. Baseball Coaches will say keep your back shoulder up. But what they are seeing is a flattening of the bat, not a dropping of the shoulders necessarily.

You will not hear coaches say anything about the back shoulders if the hitter is able to keep the bat up and stacked over the hands even when the back shoulder is dropping. The back shoulder will drop as a result of a good tilt, which again has to follow a good shift. Your hands (palms) can still be in a good position with a quality shift and a quality tilt, regardless of the drop in the back shoulder.

The tilt is important for leverage, stability and for cheating to get on plane with the pitched ball.

INTRODUCTION

The fans of the South Eastern Conference take their college football very seriously. Year in and year out they lead the country, dominating overall attendance records. In 1999, 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004 the conference drew more than 5.5 million fans at its home games; a national record for a conference. Football Fanatics, you bet, and they wear the badge proudly.

I on the other hand reside at the other end of this spectrum. My parents were not sports people and it simply was not part of our family structure. I would half-heartedly follow our local sports teams but only if it was convenient. If the game was on and I happened to be sitting in front of the television then great, or if there was a radio handy I might tune in. Never in my wildest dreams could I have envisioned the journey on which I would embark with my own child.

TYPICAL PARENTS

Like most baby-boom-era parents my wife Stacy and I were determined to expose our children to everything we could from sports to music to dance to theatre to whatever. Following the generational trend, we wanted to afford our kids those things that we simply did not have available to us as children. It is amazing how much has changed over the course of only a few decades. What really accentuated this point was one Christmas when Santa brought a Game-Boy for Willy, my eldest of three; while he was sitting there on the floor playing Ninja Turtles he looked up at me and asked if I played Game-Boy when I was little? That simple, innocent question tells the whole tale. Game-Boy – PS2 – Xbox 360 – Wii, heck, all I had access to was Pong which came onto the scene when I was about eleven years old; my cousin had one so the only time I was able to play it was when I went to visit him. I try to explain to my children that the first time I had access to a computer was in college. We had to sign up for computer time which often was in the wee hours of the morning. They look at me, while texting a message to their friend, as if I am speaking a foreign language. Even our vocabulary has changed; is texting a proper word?

Growing up in the inner city during the late sixties – early seventies the only organized sporting activities available to me were baseball, basketball and football. Tennis and golf were primarily for those belonging to a country club, hockey and soccer simply did not exist and opportunities for swimming, track, wrestling and volleyball were not available until high school. Today children have instant access to the world and exposure to almost anything; baseball, soccer, tennis, basketball, swimming, scouting, piano, you name it. I told my children early on that they could participate in anything except football and boxing. My wife and I were determined that our children participate in something; what they chose was for the most part up to them. The risk of chronic and even severe injury from football is just too high and boxing is just plain lunacy. Had Extreme Fighting existing during that time it would have been prohibited as well. Everything else was fair game.

WHO KNEW?

Jump ahead about ten years. Alex, my middle child, came home from school one day and told me that he had joined the football team, catching me off-guard and momentarily speechless. He knew the rules, football was off limits. ‘Really, what position?’ I asked. I’m going to kick, he explained, assuring me that it is the safest position on the roster; kickers never get hurt. I then asked how this came about. Alex’s gym class was outside on the football field where he and a few of his buddies, who were already on the team, were goofing around kicking field goals. As it turns out Alex was popping them through the uprights, with ease, from thirty five yards out so his buddies suggested he try out for the team; the coach obviously liked what he saw and Alex became the starting varsity kicker his senior year.

WE’RE FOOTBALL PEOPLE NOW

The most ironic part of this journey is that prior to Alex joining the football team I had never attended a high school football game as an adult and attended only a handful as a student. Perhaps if I had friends on the football team when I was in high school or dated a cheerleader the Friday night games would have drawn my interest.

For all practical purposes high school football was a new experience for me so naturally I had no idea what to expect. I figured that my family and I would attend the games, watch our son kick a few balls and enjoy an evening out. My wife on the other hand jumped in with both feet and did not look back. From the very first game Stacy looked and acted like a veteran football mom. She wore the traditional red, white and black scarf displaying the school colors along with the big button proudly pinned to her chest showing off a photograph of her son in his football uniform. Number fifteen, that’s MY child. The photo-button is the official badge of honor for all of the mothers with children who are members of the team, the various cheerleading squads and the marching band. It truly is a beautiful sight to look into the stands and see a wall of moms sporting big photo-buttons accented with red, white and black scarves. Simply put, football is addictive. There is so much emotional purity involved at this level that you cannot help but get caught up in all the excitement. I think the reason for this is that the fans are more vested than at the college or professional level; the high school setting is much more intimate. Parents are obviously going to cheer for their children regardless of level or venue, but the true difference rests with the kids in the stands. They are rooting for friends that they grew up with, friends whose birthday parties they attended and sofas they slept on. These are the same kids who were lab partners in science class and were teammates on the recreational soccer team. The kids on the field and the kids in the stands have literally known each other all their lives. This depth of connection on such a wide scale simply cannot occur at the college or professional level. The kids being raised within the same community is what makes high school sports so special and unique.

From the time my children reached middle school my opening line when I got home would be the same; “How was school, do you have any homework?” Now though, now that we’re football people there is an added wrinkle. When I speak to Alex it is, “How was school, do you have any homework, how did you kick today?” Like I can advise him if he proclaims that he did not kick well in practice? The only piece of advice I would be able to give that made any sense at all would be to keep your eye on the ball; how profound and utterly obvious. But it was important for me to get a progress report. I wanted to be involved; I needed to be involved, for we’re football people now.

DEJA VU

My parents lived ten to fifteen minutes from us yet, when our children were little it would take us forty five minutes to get everyone situated for a ten minute ride. Attending our son’s football games resulted in a similar ordeal. We graduated from a checklist of formula, diapers, toys, snacks, juice bottles and extra clothes to stadium chairs, blankets, gloves, hats, umbrella and directions. The one constant was that someone always had to use the restroom at the last minute just as we were ready to walk out the door. A few things in life transcend gender – religion – geography – nationality – economic status – education and language; having a family member run to the bathroom just as you are ready to leave the house can be deemed a universal truth.

THE PORK PIE HAT

When my children were old enough to attend school I went out and purchased a black leather Pork Pie hat which I would dutifully wear to all of their outdoor events. Initially, I wanted to wear a Dr. Seuss hat but my wife said I looked silly; my kids thought it was funny. The Pork Pie is a cool looking hat which I still wear to this day. The main reason I bought it was so my children could easily find me in a crowd. If we ever got separated, just look for the odd looking hat. In a sea of baseball caps my Pork Pie hat stuck out like a sore thumb. It worked well and my children got used to the idea. As they grew older and started playing organized sports they would use the hat to easily find me in the stands. Alex tells me he still looks for the hat while standing on the sideline. Old habits die hard.

FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS

Being a disciple of the ‘Just in Time’ theory the parking lot is already packed as we approach the stadium, so once again I am relegated to waiting in line to drop off my family at the front entrance then park the car. Most nights, the nearest parking spot is a quarter of a mile away which is not a problem unless it is 30 degrees and windy or pouring rain. Unfortunately, I got to experience both. As I make my way to the field I pass a used car lot full of automobiles neatly arranged on the grass between the ‘No Parking on Grass’ signs. The scope of influence the football program has on local law enforcement is impressive. I purchase my ticket and call my wife to find out where she is sitting. Thank heaven for cell phones, without them I may not find her until halftime when the stampede occurs to line up for pretzels, hot dogs and the all important restroom.

A high school football game is a roller coaster of emotion and excitement from waiting for the team to run onto the field through the tunnel of cheerleaders, crashing through the home made banner – to the halftime show featuring both high school marching bands – to the end of the game when the entire football team runs over to the stands in front of the marching band to pay homage to one another as the band plays the school’s fight song. I have come to realize that this spectacle simply has to be experienced first hand to be appreciated and understood. The electricity and energy of a live high school game is invigorating. Boys without shirts, chests painted all screaming at their counterparts across the field – the opposing bands dueling back and forth, these kids were having the time of their lives and it was easy to get caught up in their drama. It made me wonder what I had missed when I was in high school; perhaps Alex, by being a part of the football team is affording me the opportunities I missed out on when I was a student? Maybe it is better this way, as an adult I appreciate it more.

V.I.P.

A dominating high school team brings a celebrity status not only to the players but their parents as well. All of a sudden people I had known only in passing were stopping to partake in detailed conversation with me; at the gas station, the grocery store, and coffee house. Alex is really kicking well, have any colleges approached him yet? Wow, Alex is having a great season I didn’t know he could kick like that. Truth be told, I didn’t know it either? He must have inherited it from his mother. It is a great feeling being the parent of an athlete. You cannot help but stick out your chest with pride when you hear others in the stands cheering on your son and yelling his name. It turned out to be an experience I never could have anticipated. I savored every minute. In addition I had the good fortune by sheer happenstance, of experiencing events a-typical to a normal football season like watching Alex set a new school record by booming a 48 yard field goal with one second left in the half to helping his team win a State Championship posting a flawless 16-0 record; moments like these are indeed rare.

PRICELESS

Alex told me the highlight of the season was playing the conference championship game at Heinz Field, home of the Pittsburgh Steelers. I cannot imagine how cool it is to play in a professional football stadium, I can tell you though as a parent of one of the players, it is an awesome experience to watch. To sit in the stands and watch your son on that field, kicking up the same dirt as Hines Ward and booming field goals through the same uprights as Jeff Reed is surreal. Ticket to the game – $10, soft pretzel with mustard – $4.50, hot dog and drink – $7.50, watching Alex, larger than life on the Jumbo-Tron, running off the field pumping his fist after burying a field goal – priceless.

As impressive as watching Alex play at Heinz Field was, the highlight for me came several months later at the Pennsylvania East-West All Star Game. When I saw Alex run out of the tunnel onto the field my jaw literally dropped. I was stunned, almost paralyzed from the sharp chill piercing through my body; I was covered with goose bumps. There it was, as plain as day sprawled across the back of my son’s shoulders; ROMANIAS. His name, my name was on the back of his jersey. I was overwhelmed; I never saw my name on the back of a jersey before yet there it was staring at me, taunting me, seducing me. Seeing my name on the back of that jersey was a profound experience. It caught me completely off guard; it was phenomenal. Several times during the course of the game I would lean over to remind my wife just how cool it was to see my name on the back of that jersey.

WHAT A RIDE

Who could have imagined that kicking field goals in gym class for fun would have resulted in such a magical journey? Prior to this season the last high school football game I attended was in 1978 when I was a junior. Now, we’re football people.

Next stop, college; I guess Stacy will have to get another big photo-button and a new scarf while I dust off the Pork Pie hat. Thanks for the ride son!

In this article, I’m going to discuss the long term goals of your training so you can gain perspective on what you want to accomplish this week, for your next fight, and for the toughest fight you’ll ever have. Like most of us still in the fight game, we haven’t reached our full potential just yet, and the positive aspect of this is that we have a lot to look forward to in terms of work to be done, skills to be had, and fights to be won.

The problem however, is that fighters don’t have standard metrics to measure themselves against, they don’t really know their current level or what’s possible. It’s often a guessing game. If you are a 100m sprinter aiming for the olympics, then you know that you have to pull off sprints somewhere under the 10.50s mark if you want to be remotely competitive. If you are an aspiring pro basketball player, then you are measured by points scored per game, or rebounds per game, free throw percentages, your vertical jump height, your actual height etc… coaches and scouts can get get a pretty good idea of what this will translate into at the professional level.

Having said that, your goal as it pertains to the fight game is twofold:

1) Start to define these metrics for yourself through your own experience

2) Keep an open mind as to what you are capable of and the work you are willing to put in (don’t sell yourself short)

In boxing, you don’t always know for sure what it takes to be a champion. You are only as good as your competition and it’s hard sometimes to even know how good they are at the international level. Even if you’ve won a solid amateur title it still comes down to how good the competition was and how you performed on that day. And unlike a lot of sports like tennis, basketball, soccer, hockey you can’t afford to play hundreds or thousands of matches to figure out what works. In the fight game, that’s just a bit too much wear and tear.

So, ask yourself this:

1) How can I take the guess work out of what it takes to be a solid fighter at all levels. How can I tell now if I will be good before I take a beating that wakes me up?

2) What’s it going to take in the gym to become the best fighter I can possibly be in the long run?

The most important thing you can do is focus on what you can control, and the answer to both of the above is threefold:

1) Set goals

2) Benchmark your training

3) Continuous improvement

I’m sure you’ve heard the sayings, ‘the harder you work the luckier you get’ or ‘the more you sweat the less you bleed’, you need to turn those sayings into hard data, something you can measure, and we’ll start with the end in mind. Ask yourself, what you would need to do, how would you need to train to beat Manny Pacquiao, Floyd Mayweather, Roy Jones jr. in his prime, or Bernard Hopkins in his prime. Your goal as a fighter is to build up to that level of training. There is a direct correlation between how you train in the gym and how well you do in fights, even if you are the type of fighter who has mental issues when you step in the ring for the real deal.

A fighter like Floyd Mayweather throws around 5,000 – 6,000 punches per workout, guys like Pacquiao often perform 40-50 rounds of total work in the gym on any given workout. Let’s say you typically run 3-5 times a week, and when you hit the bag you usually do 6 rounds, with 3 on the speed bag, 3 on the double end, 3 for shadowboxing, along with some padwork, burpees, ab work, weight training etc. These are decent workouts, but the hard truth is that they’re not enough to beat Manny or Floyd. To be successful, you have to be extremely critical and self-confident at the same time.

Unfortunately, we are all limited by our current level of fitness and ability (nobody expects you to beat Floyd tomorrow), plus we have limited time (you may need to work or go to school full time to get by), motivation is a factor (getting motivated for an amateur show is not the same as fighting for $20 million in front of the whole world). I understand that this plays into your life, which means that even more so you have to take advantage of the time you have.

Let’s talk about what it’s gonna take.

1) Set Goals: Take serious note of what you are doing now, how many times a week are you in the gym? How many rounds do you do on the bag? How many punches do you throw per round (video yourself over 4 rounds to get a feel)? How many miles a week do you run? How often do you perform sprints? How many burpees can you do in 5 mins? How fast can you run the 800m, 400m, 100m over multiple sets with a minute rest? How often do you spar? How many total rounds do you perform each workout?

2) Benchmarking: Set standards for yourself that indicate whether you are in shape for your current level. I know I’m in decent shape when I can bust out 100 burpees in 5 minutes anytime, anywhere. I also know I’m in decent shape if I can run the mile in around 5 mins 30 seconds (of course I have other measures, but those are examples). Start to set standards for yourself in anything that you can think of. Measure by total rounds, speed, punch output, number of times per week etc… measure what you can control, and take advantage of what you can control. When you get ready for a fight, you build up to these measures and maintain them for a couple weeks before the fight. You can’t keep training the same way you always have, you have to constantly look for weaknesses and opportunities to improve in your training.

3) Continuous Improvement: Gradually increase your output, frequency, intensity and start to train the way you would need to in order to beat Manny or Floyd… add rounds to your workout, add punch volume, punch intensity, more sprints, more rounds of sparring etc. Do it one piece at a time, one brick at a time, don’t try to knock it out all in one month. One thing to keep in mind is that you will need to have breaks and down times, and this is where benchmarking comes in again. As you get better over the long run, you set your benchmarks higher so you know what you need to get back to in order to continuously elevate your game. 6 rounds on the bag per workout might have been good in your first 3-4 fights, but your gonna need to step it up to 10 eventually, or make sure that those 6 are at a hard pace where you crank out 250 punches per round. The specifics are different for everyone, but I think you know what I mean.

This endeavour should take years, and that’s the whole point of the time you are investing, to realize your full potential as a fighter, as an athlete. Your coaches can help you, they can guide you, your stable-mates can motivate you, and work with you, but it’s ultimately up to you to take it to that level. Nobody is going to hand it to you!

Did the pressure Toyota put on its dealers concerning Sales Satisfaction cause the Toyota recall issue? Toyota over the last several years began to focus on the dealers and how they were handling customers during the delivery process. The focus was no longer on the entire buying experience and the dealers ability to sell vehicles, but was reduced to scores on the Toyota Motor Sales Survey and J.D. Power Study. Toyota uses a scoring system called Vehicle Delivery Quality or VDQ to measure each customer’s satisfaction when they pick up or “take delivery” of their new car.

Toyota knew they were building a great product, being one of the Initial Quality volume leaders, but Toyota’s Delivery Quality was way behind the market average. Obviously, Toyota controls how they build their vehicles and every aspect of the processes and procedures in the factories. However, Toyota did not have the same control on the dealer level with every dealer having different processes for delivering new Toyotas. Toyota begin to see a pattern develop – if the Toyota store had bad VDQ scores, then that stores numbers were down usually in both sales and profit.

Was it this major concern for these bad apple stores with bad VDQ scores and a lack of control at the dealer level concerning customer satisfaction that caused Toyota to stop doing what they do well? I believe so. Toyota took for granted that they build and manufacturer one of the best automobiles in the world and stopped focusing on that and began to focus on the question, “what can we do with our dealer body to increase customer satisfaction?” Toyota had all of the solutions, Customer Experience Groups, Customer Relations Manager positions, VDQ tools, tests and training, Toyota Motor Sales Delivery Training. Toyota put managers into the field and they were involved with nothing but Customer Satisfaction and Delivery Process.

How many unsatisfied customers are there now due to the recalls? The St. Petersburg Times quoted Manny Oliveira of Sun Toyota, “If we did 50 repairs a day, just on the cars we’ve sold here, it would take us a year to finish.” Dealers are doing everything they can to satisfy the customer, most, if not all Toyota dealerships have increased their service hours some even opening 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It is innate for a dealer to want to satisfy his customers. If the dealer doesn’t have happy customers, they won’t stay open very long.

However, Toyota should have continued to focus on what they do well and let the dealers focus on missing keys, door dings, missing floor mats, full tanks of gas and all of the other things that go into customer satisfaction at the dealer level. I am confident Toyota will fix these recall issues and will once again gain their reputation as a dependable car builder. I am also confident that Ford, GM, Hyundai and other auto manufacturers have narrowed that quality gap and Toyota will find it much more difficult to climb back to the top as the number one selling auto manufacturer in the world.

Although the debate about banning metal baseball bats in youth baseball is not settled, high school and college players find themselves playing in wood bat summer leagues more and more these days. “It’s clearly a trend,” a coach told me last summer on opening day of the John Marzano Wood Bat Scout League in Philadelphia. “Kids know they need to do this, their coaches do too, and the scouts love it. Hitting with wood is a lot less forgiving than metal.”

All of this makes for a more diverse baseball bat collection in summer dugouts — from Cape Cod to Surprise, Arizona. And as the wood bat trend spreads to younger players, parents and coaches may want to know what the elite amateur players are using in tournaments like the World Wood Bat Championships held in Marietta, Georgia at the East Cobb Baseball complex.

In some ways you just have to look at the bats the pros are swinging. The two classics offered by Louisville Slugger, Derek Jeter’s C71 and Alex Rodriguez’s P273 are both guaranteed by the world’s top bat company to be made of pro-stock wood. But if you watch Ryan Howard or Albert Pujols, they may be swinging Marucci bats; and Barry Bonds usually hits with a Sam Bat. Chase Utley and Jimmy Rollins have been partial to MaxBats over the past several years. And during much of 2008 Manny Ramirez was doing his dirty work with an X-Bat. As you’d expect, then, Marucci, Sam Bats, X-Bats, and Max Bats can all be found in amateur dugouts.

But don’t let the pros be your only guide. There are only about 35 bat companies with bats approved and registered with Major League Baseball. Over 100 other companies make wood bats for amateur players. These companies tend to be small, primarily serving regional baseball communities. Companies like NYStix, Carolina Clubs, Bayou Bat Company, Hoosier Bats, and the Barnstable Bat Company serve independent league players, adult leagues, and local wood bat teams extensively. NYStix got a real boost last year making bats for New York City high school teams in their first year of play under the city’s new ban on non-wood bats. The company’s owner told me last winter that he was having a hard time keeping up with the demand.

Amateur players also like Old Hickory (made out of maple!), D-bats, and M-Powered bats. In addition, the more standard stock that can be found with Rawlings, Easton, and DeMarini are common — especially DeMarini’s composite wood bat wrapped in a fiberglass sleeve designed to help kids make the transition from metal to wood.

Who knows what bats will be popular next season. Zinger Bats out of Montreal is ramping up their marketing plans. Miguel Cabrera, Bobby Abreu, and Dan Uggla all used custom Zingers during at least part of last season. The influx of players from Asia has also been a boon to Mizuno. And when players get hot like Josh Hamilton did in the 2008 All-Star Home Run Derby, there’s no question that the bat he used will be on the top of every young hitter’s wish list (he swung an ash Louisville Slugger, Model C353; 34.5 inches and 33 ounces in weight; flame tempered with the special Smith finish).

In the end, the move to wood should keep young and old players alike online all winter long searching for just the right bat to start the new season with — maybe not as fun as playing, but certainly a useful past-time while we wait.

To start, here is a quick biography on the characters and premise of ‘Modern Family’; the show, set in present-day, and centers on the daily life of a modern family. A patriarch, Jay, marries a Columbian trophy wife, Gloria, with a perky bosom and a child from a previous marriage, Manny, who is a 40-year-old gentleman in a 14-year-old’s body. Jay has two children, Mitchell and Claire, who are each married with their own children. Mitchell is a tightly wound, overly sarcastic lawyer who is planning a wedding with his long-time partner Cameron, an overly dramatic farm boy. Mitchell and Cameron have a daughter named Lily who they adopted overseas. Claire married a goofy, kind-hearted real estate agent, Phil, and they have three children- Haley (the pretty one), Alex (the smart one), and Luke (the dumb one).

In this particular episode, Mitchell and Cameron ask Claire to pick up Lily from school and do not tell her that Lily’s school sent an email to parents about a lice outbreak in her class. Claire picks up Lily from school and is itching soon after with a lice infestation.

Now that we know the cast and the basic premise of the episode, let’s discuss the inconsistencies within:

1.Mitchell notifies Cam of the lice outbreak email and the first thing Cam does is accuse the “filthy” girl in Lily’s class, Portia, of being the source of the infestation. DEAR PARENTS, HEAD LICE CAN NOT ONLY INFEST BOTH CLEAN AND DIRTY HAIR, BUT THEY PREFER CLEAN HAIR TO DIRTY HAIR! Anyone can get head lice and to blame the “filthy” Portia is not only mean, but inaccurate as a definite source.

2.During the above conversation, Cam and Mitchell debate telling Claire to warn her about picking up Lily from school and Cam says they should not because Claire has “a 1% chance of catching it, but a 100% chance” the news would freak her out. Not only is this information inaccurate, but it is also one of the BIGGEST reasons that head lice is such a big problem. If the infestation is not made known to those coming into contact with a lice filled child, it will only continue to cycle.

3. Following the selfie, Claire attends a meeting with Mitchell and a potential client. While Claire is in the meeting, Mitchell receives a call from Cameron telling him that Lily does in fact have head lice. Cam and Mitch debate once again whether or not to tell Claire about Lily’s lice and Mitchell sees Claire come out from under a desk having obviously itched her scalp a lot. Now, head lice cause itching in only 50% of active cases and the itching comes as a reaction to the saliva a louse excretes while laying her eggs. Those that experience the itching will most likely notice the itchy feeling after having lice for almost 2 weeks! Claire was itching only hours after contact with Lily.

Here are the things done right:

1. The school actually sent a notice to parents when there was a lice outbreak in class. Not many schools will do this and it is so damaging to every child in the school! Some schools do not even notify teachers of positive head lice cases within their classroom! Without clearing all cases of head lice within the school, there will always be head lice within the school. It’s a hugely smart and proactive administrative move to notify the class!

2. The way Claire gets head lice (with no regards to the inaccuracy following) is VERY probable. With no context, the episode clearly shows Claire taking a ‘selfie’ with Lily with her hair clearly draped over Lily’s. Head lice transfer by head-to-head contact 98% of the time; they cannot jump or fly so, besides a 2% transfer percentage from bedding, hair ties, and the like, they transfer from strand to strand, quickly, when a new environment is presented to them. Lily’s head of hair could definitely have transferred head lice to Claire’s.

3. Following Cameron’s call to Mitchell telling him Lily had lice, Mitchell walks into the office where Claire is sitting head-to-head with the client looking through a magazine and he quickly slides the man’s chair away from Claire and discreetly tells her she has lice. The client leaves quickly and comes back in only to give Claire an unstoppable hug while she and Mitchell look at each other knowingly. This is ‘Modern Family’s’ second accurate portrayal of a head lice transfer.

4. In the last minute of the episode, Phil sends an untreated Lily to get a piggy-back ride to his arch-rival in trying to give him head lice. Again, this is their third and last correct representation of head lice treatment.

In conclusion, ‘Modern Family’ is one fantastically funny and entertaining show on television, there is little doubt about that (rating-wise that is), but with how many people watch ‘Modern Family’ you’d think they could at least fact check their head lice episode by someone or anyone who knew anything about head lice before filming the episode. Cam’s interactions with Lily are priceless and the head-to-head contact is all very realistic and factual, but to have Claire itching a few hours after getting head lice? C’mon, fact check people. Let’s use these great actors to actually teach something to the public about head lice.